Reflection

By Anonymous

  Reflecting on my previous three blog posts, I found it valuable to examine the same event from three perspectives. Writing my first draft, I tried to cram all three posts into one and felt that I had to sacrifice clarity and relevant evidence as a result. In the process of combing through previous readings, in a similar way to the midterm, I found myself gaining a greater understanding of readings than I had on my first pass over. Obviously, I hope that I faithfully and accurately interpreted and applied the theories from class to this case. Even if my interpretations are incorrect, I think the process of revisiting the readings certainly improved and deepened them. 

I think the Jan. 6th commemoration case was interesting to explore because of how observable and contested the narrative constructions are. Both sides’ narratives and motivations are clear and understandable. Additionally, I think the implications of narrative success for both Republicans and Democrats are interesting to speculate on. For Republicans, success would be a collective shrug at the events of Jan. 6th. For Democrats, it would be substantive political change in response to Jan. 6th as cultural trauma. As I mentioned in my final blog post, I think neither is immediately likely, at least in America is understood as a single collectivity. The fragmented commemoration will likely persist. This understanding of political division as spawned or embodied by fragmented historical views is one I would not have considered before this class. 

One question I felt unable to answer in my blog posts was the degree to which each carrier group controls its narrative constructions. I feel like the argument could be made that Republicans choose to delegitimize Jan. 6th as a cultural trauma because they are dependent on Trump’s base for political support and didn’t want to hold him accountable for his involvement. This version of events doesn’t offer them much agency. Either side with democrats and lose electoral support or minimize the event and be accused of coving it up. While for Democrats the insurrection might have presented a political opportunity, for Republicans it presented a catastrophe to be mitigated. These motivations make sense to me but also seem to suggest that Republicans are extremely beholden to not only their constituents but the former president. I’m not entirely sure what to make of the GOP’s motivations here. 

Reflecting on this class as a whole, I found the readings and assignments notably rewarding. I remember many of the early class readings seeming revelatory, challenging how I thought about history and memory, and changing how I understood temporality. Writing discussion questions, in particular, was a challenging and rewarding experience. I feel like on weeks when I wrote a discussion question I paid particular attention to the readings. Because I played a role in my classmates’ learning (and them in mine) I felt obligated to make sense of the text and ask a thought-provoking questions as best I could. I appreciated this system of peer accountability and found it supremely motivating.

As someone who has not really studied history since high school, reading texts by historians was an interesting change of pace. In many ways, this class directly challenged what I had learned about history in high school, presenting it as something that is socially constructed and in flux rather than intellectual and inerrant. 

I can’t say that the things I learned from these readings particularly challenged my understanding of my personal biography. As someone who is particularly well-represented and can only point to vaguely European heritage, I felt like I came into the class with virtually no unique cultural trauma to reckon with. Despite this, I was intrigued by and empathized with many of the case studies in class. I think this speaks to the degree to which cultural trauma can be extended to build solidary bonds. As someone who anticipates that their life and that of those around me will likely become increasingly traumatic due to global warming, I hope this class will serve me well in the future.


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